Easy
by quantumsilver
Summary: Fluff. J/C from Caretaker to Venice. Darklovers dare not venture here...
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes**: For Gates Hepburn, for her birthday. Happy Belated, dearest! Thanks to Cheshire for the beta of most scenes (remaining mistakes are sooo very mine), to Froot for the read through and opinions, and again to Chesh for the insert I'll note later. Be warned, usual readers...this won't be the dark rough and tumble stuff I typically like. There is fluff...oh God is there fluff. Lastly, I suggest intimate familiarity with Voyager and the episodes before attempting this...otherwise, you'll probably be lost.

_Easy_

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><p>~~C~~<p>

* * *

><p>I go for the backstabbing, son of a Cardassian whore, Paris, ready to tear him apart until <em>she<em> steps into me, pushing against my chest. Blocking access to my prey.

If she were a man my size, I'd hit her. It's possible that I still might if she doesn't watch herself. Who the hell she thinks she is remains beyond me as she doesn't retreat, dresses me down like I'm one of her misbehaving ensigns while I tower over her. Like I can't take her down with one solid swing, but then…that's Starfleet arrogance for you, and I'd forgotten that over the past few years of not dealing with them.

Still, it's her ship, and starting shit on her bridge, surrounded by her people, isn't the best idea. Yet.

Her eyes are something when they flash at you like that. And spirits of my ancestors, her voice is the most awful, grating sound I think I've ever heard. I just want her to shut up and stop talking.

It would be so easy to knock her out of my way. Better yet, to lean down and close those prim, red lips with mine, which would have the added benefit of shutting her up, too – as well as pissing her off. It's a fleeting impulse I'd never act on. But it does amuse me to picture her reaction if I did. In a dark, twisted kind of way.

It would be so easy.

"…and I suggest we all concentrate on finding our people and getting ourselves back home."

She's pretty damned sure of herself; that's one thing I'll give her.

If move against her now, her 'fleet security dogs will pounce. And she's right. Paris can wait; B'Elanna's in trouble, we're spirits know where, and I don't know if we're ever going to see home again. I might need her.

At least she's stopped talking long enough to wait for my reply. My ears are thankful.

The heat of her body seeps into me, slight curvature pushing against me probably the last thing she wants me to focus on, but it does tell me she's harder than she looks. Less self-indulgent than I remember 'fleet officers being.

She still has yet to back down from a stare that's quelled many a full-grown man. It's something. Maybe she isn't a complete waste of time. Maybe.

We'll see.

I nod curtly, agree to restrain myself, to follow her lead – for now. And my life is never the same.

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>"This isn't a democracy, Chakotay. I can't run this ship by consensus."<p>

He's lost his mind if he thinks Hogan's suggestion is on the table, no matter how upset the Maquis are over losing Bendera. If they think I'm unaffected, they're dead wrong, but my own grief, my sense of failure, have no place in any conversation on this ship. Not now, they don't.

"A lot of the Maquis feel the Federation abandoned them years ago," he hammers. "You may be willing to die for Federation principles, but they're not."

_That_ is not something I want to hear.

I glare at him, absolutely incredulous. "I can't believe you'd support that man's position." I can't believe I'm hearing this, but he'd better watch himself. I don't need this – not from him, and especially not today.

"I don't."

_Well that's a relief_, I almost spit out. But he's not done, apparently.

"But isn't there something in between your position and his?"

_No, damn it. There isn't. _

We enter the turbolift, and I snap out, "Deck three." If he has any sense of self-preservation, he'll let it go at that.

Apparently, he possesses none. He doesn't back down, despite my frosty demeanor warning him to the express contrary. If anything, he grows bolder in the relative privacy of the turbolift – and it incenses me.

It would be so easy to shut him up, to let my anger get the better of me in the heat of the moment. I could strike at his jugular, sink my teeth in where I know it'll hurt, just as he's doing right now with his relentless persistence. Trying to work side by side for the last year and a half, we've learned enough about each other that I know how to do it. I could use a few choice words to cut into him as adeptly as he's cutting into me.

Better yet, it'd be even easier to simply shove him back against that bulkhead and give those full lips of his something else to focus on. There've been a few unguarded moments when he thinks I wasn't looking indicating he might not even push me away if I tried.

He's lucky a lapdog isn't always what I need in a first officer, that I've got too many of those principles he's so scathingly redressing now, and that I love Mark too much to seriously consider it in the first place.

Still. Right at this moment, it almost amuses me to picture what his reaction would be if I did do it – any of it.

"…you're responsible for making the best decisions for your crew, and I think you have to ask yourself if you're doing that."

Right for the throat. He wastes no words, makes no bones about it.

I glare at him. As raw as I still am over losing another one of those crewmembers he's throwing up in my face. As pissed off as I am at his message, his lack of unwavering support of my decisions, it would be so easy to hit him right this second. To use other, less clean means of breaking him. I could do it. So easily. He has no real idea what I'm capable of if I let my principles take a backseat to my ego.

Fortunately for him, I'm not that woman. Not yet, I'm not. And I have to admit that he's been right to push me before. There's the chance that he's right this time, too. A good chance, damn him. And damn me too.

My chin comes up in defiant silence. I'm not ready to give in that easily. I'll ask Tuvok. No way I do something like this – just _abandon_ everything I've been taught to believe about dealing with scum like Cullah – without getting his perspective first.

He's the most steady, level-headed among us all. Including me. There's no one on this ship whose opinion matters more to me.

I'll deal with Chakotay later.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

~~C~~

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><p>Talking about my feelings is something I was never good at. It's hard. Ironically, listening to others do it, giving them advice is something that comes naturally. I blame my father, and his example, for that. The man always had plenty to say to everyone else's problems…and ignored his own.<p>

Telling her I've long grown used to her company, her humor and even her Irish temper is something that's hard. Telling her I've come to appreciate her, to wonder what we could be together isn't easy. For one thing it would probably shock the hell out of her, given how we started out. It shocks me too, when I stop to think about it.

I can't quite find the words to tell her that there was no one I could have been stranded with that I think I could make a whole, complete life with _but_ her.

So I make her a bathtub because she misses hers, hoping it feels more like home. The tub is big enough for two, but that's just so she can stretch out in it, unwind as much as possible. It'll be extra work drawing water over to fill it, but if she can relax, be still for one hour out of the day that she isn't spending with those blasted insect traps of hers, I'll take it. Her delight is well worth the work.

Finding projects to work on inside the cabin so she can have her privacy, I listen for her voice calling to me at night. Sometimes, she passes the entire hour in silence. But lately, she'll draw me into her thoughts more and more, call out for my input on her latest theories.

She doesn't want the input; she just needs to hear that she's right, that she should follow her instincts, whatever they happen to be today.

I don't know how to tell her that the sound of her voice is something that matters to me, that I've come to crave. I would listen to her for hours if she wanted to talk that long. Now, I can't imagine how I ever hated it in those early days but…I was an angrier, more short-sighted man in general back then. Before her. Before I knew her – really knew her.

I'm not sure how to tell her these truths, never seem to find the right moment, the right words. So I whittle things meant to make her smile, to pull her from her obsessive pursuit of a cure we may never find. Ridiculous things. Carvings of dogs that look nothing like the real things. Awkward dreamcatchers, crude bookmarks, and once, a little Neelix bust that looked more like the dog I'd tried to make the week before than the dog did.

I'm good with sturdy, useful objects when I can refer to computer-stored designs to create them, but not so much the figurines that are supposed to resemble real, animated things. But I keep trying, keep making them. Little things, whimsical things that make her stop moving, make her face soften, make her blue eyes dance and her warm, husky laughter fill our cabin, the clearing we now call home.

That _I_ now call home.

It shouldn't be so hard to tell her that it's not just a home I'm making, trying to get her to settle into. I'm not- I can't find the right way to say that it's a home for _us_ that I'm creating here. That if she wasn't in the equation, I'd find it hard to accept our circumstances too.

I want her to know that the first time my spirit guide actually spoke to me in years was the day I tried to help her find hers. I'd like to say to her how that was the day something changed for me, made me realize my place, for as long as she's beside me, is next to her. That I've never regretted slowly changing my allegiances over to her.

I don't know how to ask her if she really sees no chance for a future together, now that there's almost no probability she'll ever get back to Earth and her fiancé. Okay – as my spirit guide kicks me, grumbles reprovingly – I admit that's a lie. Maybe I do know. I'm just afraid I won't like her answer. It's too hard to put myself on the line when she could so easily throw it all right back at me.

So I make her a headboard she can comfortably read against, and when she finally calls me out on it, on my reasons for doing it, I try. I stare at the hair she stills wear bound, a barrier, a symbol of the distance she maintains between us, try not to imagine how easy it would be to reach out and remove them, to watch her come unraveled for me.

I try to tell her that we're wasting time, that I just don't see how she's going to succeed at finding this cure without some sort of a medical degree. I think I halfway succeed.

She tells me she's not ready, and I have to respect that. I let her keep trying, won't take her safety net out from under her until she's ready to let it go. It's not easy, but I do it for her. And when the storm comes that wipes out all her equipment, takes every last chance of success out of her hands, I have no more excuses. Especially when she tells me after an…awkward moment…that we need to define the parameters of us.

To hell with parameters; I'm well past that. Yet I can't even find the words to explain _why_ anywhere in me. I'm too afraid to tell her outright and have her tell me that it's _me_ she can't see building a future with – even if she lets Mark, Voyager, go.

So I tell her an "ancient legend" – a made up concoction about an angry warrior, no peace, something, anything that comes into my head that's a rough approximation of how I feel for her. What she's become to me.

When I'm done, I know I'm caught. I can see the tears in her shining eyes as she says, "Is that really…an ancient legend?"

It was that bad, then. Damn.

"No," I admit, smiling in embarrassment at being called out on it. "But that made it easier to say."

She smiles but makes no worded response. Puts her hand up on the table, indicating for me to join it with mine. I do, feeling electric charge coursing through the physical connection. When she still says nothing, I take her silent tears, her smile and soulful eyes locked deep with mine for the hope that I've gotten through to her. That she understands exactly what it is I've been trying to say to her all this time. That there's a chance she can grow to feel the same way about me.

She isn't Seska, thank the spirits: she's nothing like her. She doesn't toy with peoples' emotions unnecessarily and especially not to spare their feelings. If there was no chance, she would tell me that now. It's not "yes", but it's sure as hell not "no", either.

There's hope.

When Tuvok returns for us less than a month later, and we beam back to Voyager, to captain and first officer and clear divided lines, it's not easy. I cling to the certainty that we'd been making progress, that we're closer now than we've ever been and that there's a chance for us…eventually. I still don't know for sure. She never said. Not outright.

One thing she never said was no.

To remind her how I feel, still feel – she has to realize it's how I still feel – I make her things from time to time. Or at the very least, bring her things. Little things. Stupid things.

Things that make her laugh, that draw out her smile.

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>The cavern surrounding us could be dark and ominous if I let it be. Instead, I hold fast to the newly-gained knowledge that it's exactly where we need to be, now that Chakotay's beamed down with the unconscious Kes.<p>

"Captain, this isn't like you," Chakotay tries after I tell him my plan. He's deeply concerned, and I want to smile at him.

_No. It's more like you – and for the first time, I think I understand you. Your faith and your convictions. The way you could throw away the pursuit of scientific answers because you don't always need them with faith like this. _

Neelix protests in the background. He doesn't understand. Chakotay does…or will if I can find the right words for this. He loves me, doesn't want to lose me, and I understand that even if I can't acknowledge or return it, but he will let me do this. He trusts me, trusts my judgment.

If I can convince him I'm not being influenced by anything but my own beliefs, that is.

"He's right," Chakotay agrees with Neelix, remains unconvinced. "It's my responsibility to keep you safe, for the crew's sake if not for your own."

I hear what he's really saying to me. We've grown that close. _Please. This is dangerous. You know how I feel about you. I don't want to lose you to some mind-altering process that's not letting you think straight._ _If you walk into that field with Kes, you'll die. _

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest when he pulls out the trump card I've been expecting when I say nothing. "I'd rather not have to relieve you of duty, but if your judgment's been impaired in any way…"

_It won't stop me_, my eyes tell him in return.

The guide asks if he can really do that, and I can only smile. "Yes, he can," I assure her.

She tells me I'm not crazy, and I know that. And I know he knows that, even through his obvious, heart-warming worry for me.

Even if I am crazy and this kills me, there's no alternative. There's no other way to bring Kes back, and I trust Chakotay with my life – with my ship and with our crew. He'll get them home for me, I believe that. As close as we are now, a single look from me is all that's needed to convey every bit of this to him.

When did that happen? That it was so easy to say so much without a word? I don't remember it being that easy before.

It doesn't matter. I know what I have to do. Neelix is still protesting that it's too dangerous, that I can't trust these people so blindly. But it isn't him I have to convince. Chakotay will stop me if he doesn't believe I'm sane. The guide admits she doesn't know the answers to their questions about my potential safety, but says that I do.

She's right. I do. I understand what I have to do to save Kes, and I refuse to not try and admit that we've lost her. Not when I believe, to the core of my being, that walking into that energy matrix with her will be what saves her.

Chakotay still looks terrified. "Captain, I don't understand this…"

It would be so easy to back down. To listen to him, to let his worry overwhelm me or even to try and lie, to say that I understand it any better than he does. But he will understand the truth, I know he will.

"Neither do I. That's the challenge."

It's hard for him. It's hard not to stop me, to reach out and physically hold me back from moving forward with her, but he won't_._ His eyes flicker: an entire conversation in one tiny gesture. _ You'd better make it through this, Kathryn. But I'm trusting you. I believe in you, and in your judgment. I'm not going to stop you. Do what you feel you have to do. I'll be standing right behind you. _

He trusts me, and because of it, I trust myself.

It works. Kes is restored to us, and I'm left shaking with over-exhaustion and a spinning mind from a three day ordeal that in no way shape or form is going to allow me to sleep peacefully tonight. Not if I don't find a way to unwind, to get some of this off my chest.

Once it all settles, my core beliefs have been shaken. I don't feel like myself. My foundation feels a little unsteady, a bit beaten. I could use some Vulcan clarity right about now, some guided meditation to help me sleep. But I've had more than enough mediation to last a lifetime and the thought of stopping by for more of it holds no appeal.

It's not the wisest course, but after wandering in a daze out of sickbay, it's to Chakotay's quarters that I migrate. It's his soothing presence I seek out, his caustic humor that I let draw me out of my funk.

He lets me in without a word, without judgment. Never presses me to talk about anything I don't want to. He offers me a stiff drink and tells me amusing anecdotes, tidbits about the crew I've missed the past few days.

It was a chance I took, coming to him when I'm this raw and open, but we manage to keep the lines where they've always been: friendly, neutral, safe. He has to sense that he could push for something more, that his chances of success might be greater tonight but he doesn't – for which I'm thankful, appreciative.

For a few fleeting moments, though, it's me that threatens to weaken. To stray from the beaten, well-crafted path I've laid out for myself to follow with him. In dim lighting, with his warm dark eyes crinkling in laughter, that smile tugging at parts of me I can't acknowledge, I find my own tired eyes drawn to his tribal tattoo. To the elegant lines of ink that call out to my hands, that seem to dare me to trace its curved and pointed paths alike with my fingertips. It would be easy to do, I think, after a drink or two. So easy…but I restrain the impulse. Fight it back.

And when he tugs at his ear, looking self-conscious before handing me the small carved monkey that looks a little bit like Tuvok with rounded ears…if you squint right after a glass of real whiskey…it's easier to laugh so freely with him than I imagined it would have been.

Too easy.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

~~C~~

* * *

><p>I have one hell of a headache, but that's nothing to the blanket of guilt covering my whole, aching body. What the hell had I been thinking, trusting them?<p>

"How were they able to re-establish a connection?" she demands of the EMH, brusque and business-like.

"My best guess is that the residual neuropeptides heightened his telepathic receptivity."

"I thought their limited equipment made it impossible to form the link over great distances?" She doesn't sound convinced, and I don't blame her.

I'm just glad to hear her voice right now, to hear the inflections that are unique to her: the low husk that's like water running over parched, sun-crisped fields…even when she's angry.

"Apparently, once they repaired the communications array, they were able to magnify the signal from their neural transponder," Tuvok smugly interjects. In stark contrast, his voice is so much less than welcome right now.

If I were a less secure man, I'd say the Vulcan's presence in sickbay is a surefire confirmation that I've just slipped back into the number two position of men she can rely on, whose opinions she'll ever trust thanks to my latest screw-up. I can't even say I'd blame her for it.

Either way, Tuvok being here only adds insult to injury. She has to know it; I know she does.

_Have mercy, Kathryn. Please. _

"Would you two please excuse us?"

Mercy. Or maybe she's just giving me the benefit of ripping into me in private by dismissing the other two.

They leave, and I'm alone with her. Now's my chance.

It would be so easy to tell her how much of her was in my foolish trust: how _she_'s the one who taught me how to do it again in the first place. How she's pushed me to seek other avenues of emotional fulfillment by maintaining the status quo.

To plead with her to understand that I'm not a fucking robot. That I respect our positions, agree with her on the Great Prohibition, but that I can't hold himself by for years on nothing. That I can only pour my heart out to her and have her simply smile mutely in return so many times before I break, go elsewhere.

It would be so easy to tell her all of it by wrapping my hands in her always-bound hair, pulling her down to me and _showing_ her how deep she is inside of me, how I hurt because there's a hole I can't seem to fill because of her.

So easy, and yet so stupid. It always seems so easy even when it's the exact wrong thing to do. And now there's a goddamned mini collective running around out there, and nothing we can do is going to undo what I've just done.

"I don't know what to say except I'm sorry," is all I have. And I am. For all of it. Least of all being everything that always, forever goes unsaid.

"Based on what the doctor's told us, it's clear you were acting against your will."

She's giving me the benefit of the doubt. Pretending she is, anyway. I'm lucky for that, and I know it. We both do, and I doubt she'll let me forget it any time soon.

But was I? Acting completely against my will? I'm not sure either of us truly believes that.

I'm not sure how much longer I can continue to bang my head against the bulkhead of futility that is the two of us out here. I just know I have to find some way to shut it off, to accept and come to terms with the fact that an us, in that sense, isn't going to happen. That it never really did and that it probably never will.

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>He spends far too much time in sickbay, damn it…but then, don't we all?<p>

"In short, Commander," the doctor informs him, "you've been subjected to a highly sophisticated form of propaganda."

"Then the Kradin don't kill innocent civilians? They don't desecrate the Vori's dead?" Chakotay asks, looking disbelieving, like he can't process what he's hearing. I can't say I blame him.

The Vori really did a number on him. And it's no compliment to me that all I can think about is that I'm so glad to see him that I'm not even all that focused on how rough it's really been for him. I should be, but I can't resist allowing myself one selfish moment of pure relief instead.

I glance down, unable to discount the notion of the Vori claims being true when I don't personally have knowledge to the contrary. "I don't know," I admit, uncharacteristically hedging, "but the Kradin accuse the Vori of the same kinds of atrocities."

He looks so lost. So tormented. "I cared about the Vori, but I hated the Kradin. I wanted to kill every one of them."

I gloss over it on purpose, don't want to focus on that chilling statement. "Evidently that was the point," I try to get him to see as gently as possible. We can work back from this, I know. As long as he's alive and physically well, we can–

At the absolute worst moment, the doors part, and Neelix barrels in with the Kradin ambassador.

"Captain!" He is, as usual, entirely oblivious to how not needed his presence is in this moment. "Ambassador Treen would like a word with the commander."

_Not now, Neelix_, I want to groan.

"I wish to tell you how pleased my people are to hear of your recovery. I'm only sorry we weren't able to rescue you sooner from our nemesis," Treen sleazes immediately, before I can run interference or try to postpone this meeting for Chakotay's sake.

Silence. Complete and utter silence. Chakotay stares at Treen like he's staring at a ghost. Admittedly, they're not a sparkling example of what the human eye would term beautiful, but we've seen stranger aliens before. He just stares, blankly, and it concerns me. Deeply so.

The ambassador swallows, and so do I as he glances over to me. To Neelix and the doctor, standing behind me.

"Have I said something wrong?" the Kradin ambassador finally asks, faltering.

It's a fair question. And I should be mortified that my first officer is behaving so rudely in front of an important guest, but I'll be damned if I don't know him better than that. There's a reason for it – I know that without asking him.

"I don't know," Neelix answers for me. He never does, it seems. Know anything, that is.

_Damn it Neelix_, I want to snap for no real good reason while eyeing Chakotay's obvious emotional distress. He is far from okay with this meeting. It's too soon.

Shocking me, he finally speaks, but only to mutter, "If you'll excuse me, Captain." Chakotay pushes his way past the ambassador and leaves sickbay right in the middle of the conversation.

I should stay. I should apologize for his bizarre behavior. My feet are already moving after Chakotay, out into the corridor – I can't just let him go. Not in this condition.

"Chakotay," I call out, almost afraid that he won't stop for me. I want him to tell me what to do to fix this for him, as he's so obviously tormented by whatever the Vori did to his mind.

He does stop – for me, and only me, I know. He turns and his eyes are so lost. So conflicted. "I wish it were as easy to stop hating…as it was to start," he says hauntingly.

That one line was all I needed to hear from him to understand.

He does leave, and I stare after him, at an utter loss for the right words. For the right actions. Everything in me is screaming at me to follow him. I haven't seen him this tortured in a long while. I know how he feels, I think – right now, I hate the Vori for leaving him like this, for opening old wounds and hatreds he's only just managed to put to bed not so long ago. I understand now, the source of his pain. His confusion and his turmoil.

I could tell him. Call after him and let him know that I still trust him, with my life, with the lives of everyone on this ship. That I'm here for him, that my private thoughts have been in turmoil for weeks while he's been missing and that I've realized more fully than ever before what his counsel, his very presence is to me by now. I could show him these things, and I could do it all _so_ easily, but I–

Damn it, I'm not free to do that. I never am, for so many reasons, not least of which are core promises that I've made to myself. To Daddy, to Starfleet, to Mark. Most importantly, to everyone on this ship, _including_ Chakotay.

I take a breath that feels like water inhalation, close my eyes. Count to ten. Then fifteen. And the urge diminishes. It always does. Reason floods back into me on the shaky exhale. There's an ambassador in my sickbay, probably highly disgruntled by now. Voyager needs supplies and he can offer them – or at least he might grease the wheels to see that it's easier to get them from his superiors.

I'll send B'Elanna after Chakotay. Maybe some time, some space is best for him. For both of us. Why tell him things, dredge up impossibilities that may only make it all so much harder than it already is on him?

Still. It would have been so easy. And shutting off from him, no matter how necessary, can be harder sometimes than others.

It should be easier, damn it.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Note**: Dialogue and setting in first section from Kirsten Beyer's _Isabo's Shirt_. Everything in between, my additions. No infringement intended.

* * *

><p>~~C~~<p>

* * *

><p>As we sit by the water on a deserted street in Venice, the tears flowing freely down her face are shocking to witness. Stunning.<p>

Heart-wrenching.

"After I lost Justin, I never expected to feel what I felt for him with another man. And I didn't, not even with Mark. I could accept that. Love doesn't always have to be an overwhelming force of nature to be worth building a life around."

If I could tell her how sad it makes me to hear her say that, I would. But this is her story. It's her heartbreak. It's not my place to interrupt her until she's done.

"But then I met you. The way you make me feel…the things that move in me whenever I let myself imagine what we could have…it isn't a safe love…a love I can control. It's the other kind."

It's my admission. My concrete admission. I haven't been chasing after self-serving phantoms of smiles for the past few years: it's mutual. I'm not crazy.

"It's what I had with Justin. I lost that once. It wasn't my fault, and it still almost destroyed me. That's what I'd be risking, for a soft place to rest my head at night. So you tell me. You still think it's worth the risk, while I'm trying to get this ship home?"

What the hell can I say to that? To any of it?

She isn't done yet. Raw emotion like I've rarely seen from her is making her whole body shake as the tears start to choke her, almost best her. "I'm not saying never…I'm saying…not now. Not until I'm no longer responsible for your life."

Which might be…never.

After the hopes I've built these past few days over the bonding box – the kiss we just shared that shattered all illusions that she doesn't feel the same way about me. Or couldn't, if she let herself.

It would be so easy to lean forward. To kiss her senseless again, and to press the advantage she's just given me. Right now, she's the weakest I've ever seen her, the most open, and I could take advantage of it in any number of ways. Use it to gain the upper hand, to plant seeds of doubts in herself, in her judgment, and _not_ to let her take what I'd deluded myself into thinking she was giving in that bonding box sitting so accusingly on the table beside us.

Doing any of that would destroy her, even if it temporarily saved me.

Now I finally know. I know what I am to her, why she sat mutely, smiled so placidly back at me the few times I dared to drop heavy hints of how I feel about her. She just admitted she knows what we can be. That she knows there's no force going to stop us if I work into that opening she's just lowered her shields long enough to show me by admitting what I do to her. What I _could_ do to her. And, as usual with her, it's somehow humbling, heart-ripping, soul-shredding, all at the same time.

It would be so easy to throw all her fear, her exposed, subconscious blockers right back in her face. I'm that hurt, that sorry to have my hope for us ripped out of me. Bitter, hurt words would flow from my tongue like poisoned honey if I let them. If I opened my mouth and let them. It would be easy to hurt her the way that she's hurting me, to focus on that part of the story she's told, and only that part. To ignore the personal truth underlying it as it relates to her and what she feels she's capable of.

It's far from easy to do what I have to do right now. In fact, it's the hardest thing I've prepared to do since gazing at my scorched homeworld on a cold shuttle view screen for the first time after its destruction. But doing any less can only prove I don't really love her, ensure that I don't deserve an ounce of the trust or faith she just placed in me. If I know her the way I think I do, there are maybe two or three people she's ever told that story to. That she ever revealed this level of vulnerability to.

I get it now. Finally, completely, get it. And I almost wish to high hell that I didn't.

I'm still no damned better at talking about how I feel. I swallow hard, just the once. Do what I have to do. Finally, I'm able to reach for her hand. "There's a legend among my people…"

Through drying tears, her eyebrow quirks at me right away, stopping me. "Is this a real legend?" she accuses gently.

Normally, I let her caustic humor distract me when she wants it to, thinks she needs it to. Not today.

"This one is, I promise. I never really understood it until now." No. I didn't. And I wish to every spirit in the galaxy that I still didn't. But I make myself tell her the story. I just hope my voice holds out for it – because my heart threatens not to. "A warrior loved a woman called Isabo…"

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>"First contact?" I probe after entering sickbay, trying not to internalize the sight of Chakotay talking to beings that aren't here in the background. At least…not in the sense that he's taking it. It's far from easy to ignore, however, even when turning away from him.<p>

The doctor seems adamant. "It was brief, but he definitely communicated with them."

"Rentrillic trajectory," I repeat, turning the words over in my mind. It sounds made up, and the doctor apparently has no more idea what it means than I do.

"Unfortunately, they never got around to explaining what that meant."

Of course they didn't. But it sounds closest to some kind of course heading, if anything. "Could be some sort of alien geometry, but we'll need much more." I glance over at Chakotay. He's chasing phantoms that aren't there, feinting and ducking blows that don't exist and it, quite frankly, scares the hell out of me. "Is it safe for him to try to make contact again?" I ask the doctor.

If it isn't, do I have a choice anyway?

"Medically speaking, yes," the doctor assures – which is not the same tune he was singing a few hours ago, when we started this half-baked plan. "The problem is convincing the commander of that."

Meaning he's not having any luck. Meaning _I'm _the one who has to try to convince him. Wonderful.

This is exactly why what's easy was never what we could have.

It's a personal failing: a weakness I possess that might not apply between us if the situation was reversed, and he was the one in charge. I know it, but that doesn't make it any less real or less dangerous. It doesn't change what is, or what must be.

It just makes fate a cruel bitch, but that was never something I was altogether deluded about.

What I have to ask of him now is far from easy. His greatest fear, and now, thanks to the doctor, one of mine for him, is what I now have to ask him to risk.

It strikes me for a discordant, jarring instant how similar this is to a necessarily forgotten interlude in a holodeck only a few months ago. An interlude in which he asked the same of me, to risk my greatest fear, and then sat back and supported me like the true and cherished friend he is when I had to hurt him. When I denied his request.

The difference is that this is for the ship. He has to do what I'm about to ask of him for the ship, just as I had to refuse _his_ request for the same reason.

As his friend, this is far from easy, yes. I risk losing my closest, most trusted counsel, my better command half to possible permanent madness. Perhaps even death. We have no idea what chaotic space might do to him, to his mind. The doctor admitted as much earlier and watching him now, he certainly looks close enough to madness already.

As his lover, with his personal fears shining raw and vulnerable in his so-dark eyes, all but begging me _not_ to ask it of him, this would be impossible.

Yet if I don't ask him to risk himself, we may all be lost and those aren't statistics I can ever accept as captain.

He'll understand later, if this all works out – if luck stands behind us one more time. He'll look at me from across this same sickbay bed, or perhaps across the dinner table as we try to choke down my burnt food, and he will smile. With his hand on my shoulder, or reassuringly patting my hand, he will tell me that I did the right thing.

That only makes it harder. But not impossible.

I steel myself quickly, approach him and take his powerful arms in my ice-cold hands. "I realize you're frightened, but you're our only hope out of this place." He shakes his head frantically, only half hearing me, and I lower my head, chasing his eye-line, speaking as slowly and as convincingly as I can. "You think this could risk your sanity – but your sanity won't do you any good if we remain in Chaotic space. I need you to keep trying, Chakotay." I hate that I do, but it's true. He's our only shot at getting out of here. "Will you keep trying?" I ask.

_For me, can you do this? Please?_

He stares at me, his eyes wide and wild. Pained and afraid. For a heart-stopping moment, I think he might refuse…

He nods. It's not easy, not by a long shot and I know it, but he nods. For me he will.

The pat I give him, the single concerned and grateful glance is all I can afford him in return.

"Keep me posted," I order the doctor on my way back to my falling-apart bridge.

He'll understand why I couldn't even stay to help him, to talk and encourage him through it. Damn him – he'll understand. Even if I'm not always so sure that I do.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Note**: First 90 percent of the first section was all Cheshire. *hugs her* She's the best ;)

* * *

><p>~~C~~<p>

* * *

><p>It's been over an hour since the flashing red lights stopped. The ship is no longer rocking, and the stars outside are fixed in place for the first time in a long while.<p>

We're damaged, though. I can feel the shudder in the deck plates beneath my boots. B'Elanna won't sleep for days.

And I have no idea what happened. How it all finished. What lines were ultimately crossed. How many were crossed.

I hear the panel outside my door being accessed, the beeps of a code being entered. It can only be one person. I stand to face her.

The doors slide open. For a moment, she stands framed within them, the light from the damaged corridor behind her flickering slightly, illuminating her as she neither moves forward nor retreats.

I take a few slow steps toward her, make sure she can locate me in the darkness. Stand with my hands draped at the small of my back. I can't tell what remains of the woman I know. I know what happened, what sent me away from her side, but I don't know what's happened since. Is she still anything of the woman I lo–

She moves, brings herself fully into my quarters, her course decided and set, her steps not wavering once set in motion. She stops with only a meter or two between us. Her hands stay at her sides, not on her hips, not behind her back as mine are, but they're controlled. Held rigidly in a deceptively relaxed stance.

"Ransom is dead."

I wanted to hear that. Her voice, that is. Not the statement. My gut clenches in fear, in expectation.

It's a blunt statement that I had already pretty much surmised, however. She wouldn't be here if he wasn't – she wasn't going to stop until he was. I give only the slightest of nods to acknowledge that I did in fact hear her. Her nostrils flare impotently at my silence. She reveals no expression in faint starlight, but the tension in her face gives her away. The clench of her jaw, the tight swallow, as she waits for me to speak. To condemn. To condone. I'm not sure which she expects or even which I have to give.

Her next exhalation of breath is harsher as she accepts that she must speak again, must elaborate. "The Equinox is destroyed. The warp core overloaded."

No doubt after being fired upon relentlessly by a larger ship – like Voyager. I close my eyes briefly and send a prayer up for the lost souls that resided on that ship. They were lost in more ways than simple death offered.

"Captain Ransom sacrificed himself to move his ship away from us," she continues, unexpectedly. "He likely spared us further damage."

That's _not_ what I was expecting to hear. I admit it. I cock my head to the side in silent question. That sounds like he chose to die rather than that she was responsible for killing him.

"In the end…he remembered his principles," she explains briefly and incompletely. "In the end…he was a Starfleet captain."

I let out a shaky breath.

And so will she be. Always. Holding herself rigidly away from me. The dust of her ship still clings to her uniform, and in this instance, physically reminds her of what happens when a captain forgets her principles. How far and how fast she can slide down that slope…and how easily. Ransom lost his ship and his crew. It doesn't matter that the principles he gave up on are not remotely the ones she questions in the dark of night. It will only matter that he stumbled…that she could too. So easily. If she slips for even one second.

How can I possibly combat that?

Damned if I know. But damned if I won't continue to fight against it when I have to, to keep trying.

"Five former members of the Equinox crew are on board," she states, correcting my assumption regarding his crew…at least some of them. "They will not enjoy a free ride home on this ship by sitting in a brig cell. I want them guarded until you deem them safe and then they will still be closely supervised."

No one else would be able to see it the way she wants it done but me. She's nervous. Unsure what my response will be.

"Captain," I say finally, noting oddly that she almost flinches at the title, "does that mean you still want me as your first officer?"

She swallows. Blinks. And in that space of time, I imagine all the possible answers to that question.

Finally, she nods. Her movement saying what her voice won't. Instead she says, "With all your rights and privileges restored therein."

We'll be okay. She's forgiven me. Mostly. I'll have to work on forgiving her. But even in the thick of it, in the scariest moments of watching her threaten Lessing…walking away from her was always too hard to really consider doing. Ever.

"Aye, Captain."

The moment of silence stretches between us until, finally, she turns away. "Tuvok is bringing the Equinox five to the briefing room. It'll be up to you to determine what positions they will fill."

She leaves. I don't even try to stop her; I need the next few moments to myself. I need the quiet to gather my strength, to talk to my spirit guide, if I can sneak it in quickly.

Kathryn is going to need me in the coming days as it fully sinks in to her, what she's done. What she's almost done, and how close she's come. How close we've come. She's going to need me _badly_. And I can't afford not to be up to the task when we start rebuilding.

But first, I'll need to make quick work of forgiving her for being human. For having failings. And forgiving myself for failing to help her combat them.

It's not going to be easy. I'm not deluded enough to think that it is. I only know that I'm not giving up on her. Not by a long shot. I'm not letting her give up on herself, either.

I'm not letting her give up on us. That would be too easy.

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>I'm not entirely certain why I'm even standing here listening to this insane conspiracy theory of hers – aside from the fact that I'm sealed into Astrometrics with her – but that's the least of my worries at the moment.<p>

No. What gets me is that Seven _almost_ has me. I shove the niggling doubts firmly back inside of me, rally my forces and tell her the truth.

"I'd be willing to consider this theory of yours if I didn't know Chakotay as well as I do." _But I do know him, Seven. Better than you can imagine._ "There is no one on this ship I trust more." That's been true for years now. "What you've done here is build what we call a house of cards."

And then she leads with what could be the one thing she could question that would make me stop and listen despite my determination not to.

The truth of his feelings for me. The depth of his commitment. Or possible lack thereof.

"Stardate 48658," she opens angrily, obsessively, and damn her…near believably. "Commander Seska is revealed to be a Cardassian spy. She defects to the Kazon and impregnates herself with Chakotay's DNA. Was he unaware of the procedure, as he claims, or were they working together, to create a new Kazon sect to capture Voyager?"

Somehow, some way, the first question she unravels is the one to hit me hardest. My God, the mere idea of that being true…

She has me before I know it, keeps pelting me with scenarios that are simply too plausible for me to ignore. Not when this ship's security is at stake, and it would be if even one of these scenarios is something close to the truth.

"_Stardate 49522. Chakotay recommends establishing trade relations with the Kolhari. Their technology uses tetryon power cells. A simple diplomatic overture or was he seeking a source of energy for the catapult? Stardate 49571…"_

Later, I'm so ashamed of myself that it's hard not to flush at him across the dinner table. It was bad enough almost losing Seven to the delusions of her own mind. But almost losing him, the trust and faith that I have in him too…

"I heard the strangest rumor today. Apparently, the captain and first officer almost came to blows." Maybe not of the physical kind…

He follows my forced levity with some of his own. "Mutiny?"

_No. I just thought so._ "First officer walked the plank." I shrug, bringing the casserole over from the replicator. "So I heard."

He chuckles. "I don't believe a word of it." _I'm sorry, Kathryn. I'm ashamed of myself too_.

"Me neither." _So am I. _

He sobers. "Seven was malfunctioning. We don't have that excuse."

"You're right. We've been through too much to stop trusting each other." _More than anyone else on this ship will ever know. _

It would be easy to take this deeper – to get into things we really shouldn't get into. But that's as close as we can come to any serious discussion. As usual, we hold two conversations in one; the verbal, safe conversation, and the real one with our eyes.

"You didn't poison the coffee did you?" _Are you going to hold it against me?_

"Not any more than I usually do." _No._ _Of course not. I'm just as guilty this time._

We laugh together. It's a slightly more hollow sound than it should be, yet all in all, we seem to be okay.

But I worry at how easily we were pulled into Seven's web of conspiracy theories. It wasn't just one of us. I wonder whether or not we're drifting further apart than we realize, without us having noticed it. If Seven had come to us even a year ago, she wouldn't have stood a chance at convincing either of us to go along with her paranoia.

It bothers me. If Chakotay and I had been the unshakable team that we're supposed to be, we'd have realized there was something very wrong with Seven before she had a chance to leave the ship and put herself in danger. If we can't trust each other, completely, the ship will only continue to suffer. We came so close to doing irreparable damage today.

I retire for the evening after bidding him a subdued good night, exchanging his company for a long, hot bath. I feel a bit better after the indulgence, and when I amble tiredly back into my living room, on my way to the replicator for one last cup of coffee before grabbing the poetry book I last had time to open about three weeks ago, something catches my eye in the dim lighting. There. On the coffee table, beside the untouched book. Something's sitting there. Something I hadn't noticed before.

I walk slowly over to it, cocking my head slightly in confusion. Until I make out the shape. The texture of the material, the misshapen outline. And grin.

It's the worst parody of a peace rose carved out of wood I think I've ever seen. Well…in fairness…it's the only one I've ever seen, strictly speaking. Still, it's bad. The petals all meld together, the leaves curl awkwardly, looking sickly and anemic, and the stem is more warped than a bud that size would be supported by. That I know what it is at all, what it's supposed to be, is probably due only to how well I know Chakotay. Which, knowing him, might have been his point in the first place when having the questionable judgment to even attempt this project.

It's horrible. An insult to roses.

It's beautiful, and it means _everything_.

My eyes dart to the door as if he'll still be standing there, but of course he's long in bed. I almost hope he sees my delighted smile through all the bulkheads between us nonetheless.

Sleep, with a badly-made carving sitting on the bed table beside me, is easier than I'd thought it would be.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


	6. Chapter 6

~~C~~

* * *

><p>The conference room is one closed of tension as we stand around, debating in it. Her voice is hard, determined, laced with revelation.<p>

"The obelisk at Khitomer? The fields of Gettysburg? Those are other peoples' memories too, but we don't honor them any less. The eighty-two colonists who died here…they deserve their memorial."

She can't be serious. "Captain," I start. _Think about this. Really think about it. _

"We're not going to shut down the transmitter. Is that clear?" We gape at her. "Is that _clear_?"

"Are you suggesting we leave it intact?" Tuvok asks to clarify her point. His dubious voice indicates that, for once, he actually sides with me here.

_Shit, Kathryn. Not even the Vulcan agrees with you. Let it go. _

"I'm suggesting that we repair it. Recharge the power cells. I want that monument to function properly for another three hundred years. We'll place a warning buoy in orbit. Anyone who enters this system will know what to expect. Dismissed."

It should be easier to support her on this. To stand by her side. But too much has happened, too many things have come between us to make unwavering support of her every decision as easy as I found it in the last few years. That's not to say I won't do it, though, and I know damn well, even now, that I will.

What she's proposing is something I don't agree with. We're still raw, still hurting. I thought I'd killed people again, this time for a completely misplaced cause, for spirits' sake. I lived with that tormenting knowledge for weeks!

Her ideals are what get in her way sometimes. In the way of rationality, common sense, and to me this is just plain wrong. No one should have to go through what we did these past few weeks, her included.

I could go to her now, kick up dust and dirt and hellfire, start an argument to end all arguments: that's the way we fight. But the fact of the matter is that she needs to do this for whatever reason, and the argument in this case will only end one way. Badly.

I thought supporting the holographic tryst with that ridiculous barkeep would open her to the idea of taking a risk, help her re-channel that cause-bound energy. That part of her, that drive…the dedication to a self-righteous cause…it's so hard to shake out of her once it sets into her. If nothing else, the Borg, and recently, the Equinox, proved that.

I thought maybe she would realize through the hologram that we might make something work. I was wrong. It's only pulling her away from me, making our relationship that much more strained. I almost scoff. Our non-existent relationship, that should be. We don't have one because she can't handle it.

_Maybe I can't handle it either, Kathryn. Maybe I'm human, and I make mistakes. Do you have to keep punishing me for them?_

I shake myself. Grit my teeth. None of this has any bearing on the limits of what I can and cannot do to comfort her, to dissuade her from making this another one of her projected causes. The bitter thoughts come from sheer frustration, at the limitations of what I can be to her, and the dawning self-knowledge that I couldn't handle it any better than she thinks she can. It's hard enough to handle as it is.

She's going to do this, whether I want her to or not. The harder I fight her, the worse it's going to get. It's not the first time though. It's just getting harder to maintain hope for us.

We stand on the field, pristine landscaping untouched by humanoid hands in centuries surrounding us. It feels like we're standing in a graveyard, desecrating it as we prepare to do something I don't believe in, but for her, I keep my mouth shut. For her, I do so many things I'd never do for anyone else. Anything so she can have peace of mind within herself – I know how little of it she finds when she lies in bed alone, tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling. At alien stars streaking by in the viewport.

I take a breath. "We're ready, Captain."

"I know this was hardest on the four of you, but if you hadn't stopped at this planet all the people who died here would have been forgotten, and if they could, I know they'd thank you," she assures us. I wonder if she even hears herself right now. Her eyes burn bright with self-justification, with self-satisfaction that she's in the right.

None of us argue. Not anymore. I wonder sometimes if they do it for the same reasons. They know her almost as well as I do. _Almost_.

"Janeway to Voyager. Stand by to initiate power transfer."

We stand, watch mutely as her will is carried out. As the monument from hell is properly powered. Once she's satisfied we've had enough time to reflect on the gravity of our actions, of the cause, she gives the order to return.

"Five to beam up."

We leave as we'd beamed down: in a silent circle of purpose. Her purpose, and one I'm not sure was necessary this time.

Sometimes, it's just so hard. I wish it was easier, but it is what it needs to be. Most days, I can even admit it lately.

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>"Remember when I said I didn't have any objections?"<p>

I sigh inwardly, keep walking. If I stop, I may back out of this, and it's too good an opportunity to cripple the Borg to pass up. It's my duty, and he'll have to understand that. Frankly, given all the tension between us lately, I should probably be grateful he's still going through the motions at all. It hasn't been an easy six months.

Hell. It hasn't been an easy six years. But Unimatrix Zero is our best shot.

"Can't this wait till I get back?" I ask out of habit more than hope.

"I realize I'm not going to talk you out of this, but I'll be damned if you're going in there alone."

_Chakotay, don't. I thought we grew out of this. Let me do this by myself, minimize the risk to the rest of you. _"We've got a lot of work to do, Commander–"

"You said you wanted my support."

I need it. He knows that.

"Then take Tuvok and B'Elanna with you."

_Remember when your support came without any strings attached? Before you knew me better than I know myself?_ _Remember when I didn't have to give myself over to holograms, fall in hollow love with them to keep myself on the straight and narrow, and away from beds I can't afford to fall into?_

"And if I don't?" I ask, already beaten by precedent. I know what I am to him. I may not be able to acknowledge it, but I do know it's easiest to give in. It's his chance to back down, though. To get out of this having done his duty. When he doesn't, it tells me everything I need to know about what still lies beneath the tension we're combating between us lately.

"I may only be first officer," _ouch, Commander_, "but I still pull a few strings around here. The doctor could be persuaded to question your medical fitness."

It should shock me, but it's a threat he's used once or twice before. And given the hag that smug field of photons can be, he'd jump at the chance to support Chakotay, and I know it.

"I was hoping for your unconditional support," I drawl. _I was hoping you wouldn't ask me to risk the lives of our people as well, just to increase the chances that I'll come back to you. _

It would be easier if we just let hopes for a hypothetical future die.

"This is the best I can do." He's all smiles, just like me. We're in a public corridor, after all.

But that's not to suggest he isn't fully prepared to do as he threatened because he does not make idle threats. I can fight him, kick up dust and dirt and hellfire, waste time we don't have, but the fact of the matter is that this has a better chance of success with their particular skills backing me up.

It's not entirely why he's asking me to do this, and I know that. It's going to be far from easy for him to watch me walk away from him, from Voyager, and to know what I'm knowingly walking right into to boot.

Despite what the anger flashing in his eyes indicates he sometimes believes to the contrary, I've never deliberately caused him pain. Nor hurt him. If this increases the chances of our success, it's the right move in spite of my inclinations. In addition, if it still fails and we don't come back, he will be able to tell himself that he did everything he reasonably could to make sure that I did. It'll hurt him less.

I sigh inwardly. The lives, the individuality of B'Elanna and Tuvok on my immediate shoulders will only make me that much more determined to succeed over there and – damn him, he knows that too.

He knows me. And he makes it easier to acquiesce without losing face, to decrease the chances of hurting him, and I l–

"Tell them to pack light," I say.

The queen taunts us, tries to bargain with us. It's confirmation that we've got a real chance to do some damage to her, and it bolsters my decision to go. Yet all too soon, it's time to leave.

"_Torres to Bridge."_

This is it. "Go ahead," I say.

"_The Delta Flyer is ready for launch."_

"On my way." I turn to him. It's better that we do this on the bridge. Makes it so much easier. "Guess I'd better be going, huh?"

"Anything you'd like done around here while you're gone? Gravity plating recalibrated, carpets cleaned?"

_A carving of some animal so badly constructed it'll look like Mezotti made it – or maybe just a silver mirror left on your pillow? _I hear it all, though he doesn't say it.

His face is the one I want to take with me. Just in case. It would be easy to reach over, to trace the lines of ink across his brow, a path my fingertips know by heart though they've never traced it. Instead, I smile. Hold out my hand for him to press his over it, just for a moment. It's a weight and texture so familiar and it's comforting. "Surprise me," I tell him. "You have the bridge."

_And so much more. I'm sorry it has to be this hard, Chakotay. But any other way, and it would be impossible. Surely you see that by now?_

I head for the turbolift without looking back at him. Much.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

~~C~~

* * *

><p>It breaks my heart to see her stepping out onto the bridge looking so sad. She takes her seat, her eyes shining with emotion she's carefully suppressing.<p>

But I see it. I can't help seeing it. I know her far too well to pretend I don't.

"Are you sorry I came back for you?" I ask then hold my breath, waiting on her response.

"Not for a second," she lies convincingly, her eyes burning into me.

It has to be a lie. I just swooped down there and took the one thing she can't have up here, the one thing she deserves as much as any of us, right out from under her. I took her shot at peace, at some sort of emotional fulfillment. And I brought her back here, where her burdens are going to crush that peace right out of her. Where she's not free to follow her heart so unreservedly. Where she has to leave the man she loves behind her.

_**I**__ am, Kathryn. God help me, but I am. I'm so sorry. _

I've seen that she can be happy without me. That if she lets herself, she might find something, somewhere. With someone who isn't serving under her. I can't help admitting, accepting that part of the reason she hasn't is probably _me_. Me waiting on her. Knowing that I'm hanging around, lingering, waiting for a chance that might never be coming of the two of us being together.

It's now that I accept a bitter truth that's been slowly sinking into me, since the moment I watched her interacting with Jaffen across a crowded room. Since I saw the openness, the unreserved hunger she directed at him. The joy that she can't have here.

I have to move on. For her sake. It's plain cruel to keep this foolish illusion alive between us. I make a note to go down to Astrometrics, to see if Seven remembers asking me for that lunch date before they were taken, had their minds warped and their lives turned upside down. I resolve myself to going down there and seeing if she's still interested.

I'm not giving up on Kathryn. Not entirely. But I do have to walk away from her. For her sake, and for mine, I have to do it.

I just wish like hell that it wasn't going to be so _fucking_ hard.

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>"You chose to put the lives of strangers ahead of the lives of your crew. You can't make the same mistake again."<p>

_Screw you_, I nearly tell her. _You have no idea what I've sacrificed for this crew_. But civility dies hard, even when you're pissed off…at yourself. "You got Voyager home, which means I will too. If it takes a few more years then that's–"

"Seven of Nine is going to die."

Well that's one way to get a girl's attention: gut her outright. The blood rushes from my head, pools in my icy hands and feet. "What?" I demand.

The woman who will be me in a decade knows she has me, I can see it in her eyes. "Three years from now she'll be injured on an away mission. She'll make it back to Voyager and die in the arms of her husband."

"Husband?" is all I can weakly focus on, furiously blotting out the rest.

"Chakotay."

If she's me, she knows what that casual revelation just did to me.

"He'll never be the same after Seven's death, and neither will you," she continues relentlessly.

Our agreement was simple. If our hearts don't lead us in other directions, then we'll come back to each other. Apparently…his does. His lunch date. His other plans. _Seven_.

My future self came back to rip out my heart and stomp on it, apparently. I'm going to be an evil bitch in a decade. Good to know, I decide.

The idea of it. And then to have him lose her anyway…

"If I know what's going to happen I can avoid it," I maintain stonily, hoping she'll just drop off the face of the earth, or out of the corridor, as I go.

"Seven isn't the only one. Between this day and the day I got Voyager home, I lost twenty two crew members. "

Twenty-two. It could be anyone. I don't want to know–

"And then of course there's Tuvok."

No. Damn it.

I turn to her. "What about him?" she makes me ask.

"You're forgetting the Temporal Prime Directive, Captain," she taunts.

"The hell with it." Apparently, I have nothing left to lose. Do I?

"Fine. Tuvok has a degenerative neurological condition that he hasn't told you about. There's a cure in the Alpha quadrant but if he doesn't get it in time."

If he does…if she's telling the truth…

"Even if you alter Voyager's route, limit your contact with alien species, you're going to lose people, but I'm offering you a chance to get all of them home safe and sound today. Are you really going to walk away from that?"

I'm going to walk away from her, that's for damned sure. I do. I leave her standing there, ignore the look of triumph radiating across her age and grief-lined face.

I check up on her claims, all of them that I can, anyway. Tuvok and the doctor admit the truth. He hadn't wanted to tell me, but I read the answer in his eyes when I ask them. They admit that Tuvok is suffering from a condition he's deliberately kept from me. That the cure can only be found in the Alpha quadrant, at the hands of one of his family members. And a simple check of Chakotay's whereabouts tells me who he's with. Where they are.

I can't let it deter me. That hub has to be destroyed, no matter what. It can take the Borg to Earth; they can use it to launch an all-out invasion against us at any time, even if we do manage to reach home by using it.

My crew agrees with me. No matter my future self's delusions, her bitter cynicism, I am not yet her, and they are not yet the broken people she described. With their agreement and support, even Harry's, I know what I have to do.

No. That hub _has_ to be destroyed.

But there might be a way to do both. To use it to go home, and to destroy it on the way through the conduit. That must be my focus. If there's any possible way to do it, I'll need my own help, however. My future self's help. I'll have to convince her to assist us instead of fighting us, to tell me all she knows and if she works with me, there might be a way.

There _has_ to be a way. A way to save them all.

Chakotay and Seven. God, but that stings a bit more than I'd have expected – as if this was ever something I could have expected.

Seven years of building lives together. Of learning each other and growing to trust…fighting for that trust. Years of building promises on top of toppled hopes and broken dreams. It hurts. It hurts like all mighty hell – but I love them both. One is my surrogate daughter, carried by the Borg, and the other is the man who would have been my lover if circumstances hadn't forced us to work together in one hierarchal unit.

So in one way, the admiral is right to ask. Can I walk away from a chance to ensure their future happiness? Their chance to grow old together, and perhaps – ow, oh God that hurts – watch their children grow? Even if the idea is shredding, and hope-crushing on some other personal level?

Even if it means walking away from Chakotay, and the years-long idea of that future having been built with me instead?

Of course not. It will be hard, hard as hell if the smarting, resounding ring of shock in my ears is any indication. But he and I were never easy, and I'd be walking away from something we, technically, never even had to begin with.

So for him. For both of them. For Tuvok, my oldest friend, and for the twenty-two unnamed crewmen – it doesn't matter what their names are, who it is, it will hurt to lose them just the same – for all of them…

I already know what I'm going to do. And I know what I'm not going to do, no matter how the rest of this plays out, and that is to rob two of the people most dear to me of the chance for a fulfilling future with my unconditional support.

Even if that future is together and even if there's no room leftover to include me.

I almost have to laugh, though. Really I do. If all goes according to my hopes…if we can find a way to work together and make both goals possible, by all indications this budding romance will only have been unfolding weeks before we get home. Just weeks.

Fate is a cruel bitch indeed. But then…that's nothing I was ever deluded about. Is it?

I wait in the mess hall, for my future self to come and find me me. If I know myself at all, even in the distant future, she'll come. When she does, I'm going to find a way to convince her to help us both.

* * *

><p>~~C~~<p>

* * *

><p>"We did it."<p>

I'll be damned. So she did. We're home. I never doubted she'd do it. Not for a second. I guess I never really let myself believe that it would work _this_ time…that it would really be so soon.

Her methods may have been unorthodox, but that's so intrinsically her that it's not surprising. Her future self came back for us, but it was her. She did it. Kathryn's brought us home.

"We're being hailed!" Harry's grin is audible and I don't need to see it. It's surreal.

"On screen," Kathryn says. "Sorry to surprise you. Next time, we'll call ahead."

Unless I'm mistaken, that's Tom's father, Admiral Paris looming over us on the viewscreen, peering down on us in bewilderment. "Welcome back," he says, looking stunned.

"It's good to be here," she grins.

Admiral Paris has no idea what he's witnessing, is probably in a fair amount of shock to see us sitting here – for which I can't entirely blame him as he all but stutters, "How did you…?"

"It'll all be in my report, sir."

The last time she had to address anyone as "sir" so directly was seven years ago. It almost amazes me, the humility she's capable of injecting back into it, so easily. But then I know her. I know the relief that's probably starting to loosen a tight knot of crushing responsibility she's carried for the last seven years.

"I look forward to it," the older Paris assures with a final glance at his son.

The screen cuts out and I watch Kathryn stand gazing out at the viewscreen. It's a poignant moment.

"Thanks for your help, Admiral Janeway."

I'm not sure anyone hears the low murmur but me. But I do hear it. I bow my head for a moment, finding the thought of her, any version of her, dying, disturbing. I don't like the thought. It's a dangerous one.

She died for us. A version of her died for us today. So we could be standing here, basking in this moment. I'll never forget that, and I won't let her forget it either.

"_Sickbay to the bridge,"_ a voice interrupts my heavy musings. The sound of a baby crying in the background over the comm. tells us we have our newest addition to the crew.

Harry chuckles.

"_Doctor to Lieutenant Paris. There's someone here who'd like to say hello." _

Kathryn's still smiling, all she seems able to do. And yet I can hear the notes of emotion that she isn't expressing, that she's suppressing. It's understandable. I'm overwhelmed myself, still half in shock.

"You'd better get down there, Tom," she tells him.

"Yes, ma'am." Tom doesn't wait to be told twice. His relief…wait. We didn't have anyone standing by to relieve him – we've been otherwise occupied the past few hours trying not to get ourselves killed.

Kathryn speaks again. "Mister Chakotay, the helm."

_Mister_. It's an odd moment for formality I can't help thinking but shrug it off. Maybe not. The moment is too triumphant to mar with questions, at any rate. "Aye, Captain." I proudly descend the ramp to follow her orders. Maybe one of the last I'll ever take from her.

"Set a course…for home."

With immense pleasure, I enter the coordinates; it's easy. The heading is one we've all long ago memorized. But today we'll actually reach it. I'd like to be standing next to Kathryn, by her side the moment we actually dock at–

And then it dawns on me. Really hits me. Through the shock, fading adrenaline, elation, relief.

We're _home_. And I've been standing next to _Seven_.

Not by Kathryn.

The woman I waited for for nearly seven years is finally free to be what we'd promised each other we would be…and I'm in a relationship with someone else. A weeks-long relationship I've carefully cultivated, nurtured because I've started to see a long-term potential in it. We have yet to say anything to Kathryn about it. She has no idea we've…

A heavy stone drops straight into my gut. That's one conversation that isn't going to be easy – not by a long shot. In fact, it's why I've been steadily putting it off. And if I thought it was going to be hard before, that's nothing to what it's going to mean now.

I glance back at Seven. The moment suddenly feels odd. Off. It's…not what I'd pictured for the majority of the last seven years. I return her soft smile. That's nothing to do with her, and it isn't her problem. It's mine.

I turn back to the helm, all while avoiding Kathryn's gaze. If she's even looking in my direction.

Suddenly, I'm filled with a sinking sensation, one I try to fight off but that I can't seem to shake.

I could not have screwed things up more if I'd tried.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

**Note**: Setting, background, dialogue for the scenes in this chapter are from scenes of Full Circle, by Kirsten Beyer. As they were published, I treated them and the scene from _Isabo's shirt_ as canon episodes, just as I did with actual episodes, filling in between the dialogue and extrapolating from her framework of prose. The woman's written some quality J/C, bless her, and as this was for Gates, who loves those scenes as well, I hope I did the core framework justice by using them to tell a bigger tale. No infringement intended.

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>My own orders, my concerns, aren't something I want to discuss with him just yet. He'll be leaving for his latest mission soon and there are other…matters…I want to see if we can resolve first. But it's not so easy just to deal with them head on. It never has been.<p>

Dinner, at least, is easy. It's the one thing we do, have always done, well. Even in those first few weeks back on Earth, before he got around to telling me he and Seven had ended their fledgling relationship.

"Whatever happened with Captain Leona?" I ask, keeping my tone as light as the dinner.

"Nothing."

Hmm. Yes, it would have been hard when her ship, the Osiris, was recalled to Earth for an emergency overhaul only a month after she and Chakotay had crossed paths, I muse. It's a good thing I had my loyal secretary, Deacon, discreetly check into the Osiris's design specifications and discover that potentially fatal flaw in their engines.

I did it for him, of course – for Chakotay. If he was interested in the woman, and she blew up on some routine mission, what kind of a friend would that have made me, if I could have prevented it and didn't?

It's not my fault that in order to properly check the ship over, the Osiris had to be called away from where Chakotay was stationed at the time. If he'd truly liked the woman, wanted to pursue something with her, he could easily have looked her up later.

Apparently, he didn't.

And the overhaul remains my secret gift to him. He doesn't really know how to take gifts all that well. The last time I gave him a true gift, in fact, he sat speechless for the better part of five minutes before we were called to the mess hall for his surprise party. I see no reason to make him uncomfortable by telling him I'd recalled the captain's ship for his sake.

I feel his eyes on me. Almost as if he knows, can read my careful silence. Damn. If I look up while he's staring at me, he _is_ going to know. He'll read the truth in my face…nine years have only increased his ability to do that.

Mercifully, he moves on. "What about you and Admiral Harlow?"

Or not so mercifully. The teasing lilt in his voice has me cringing.

Oh, God. He's heard the rumors by now…of course he has. It was something of a minor scandal when I caught the good admiral secreted in that alcove – with another woman plastered all over him – at a promotion party he'd invited _me_ to attend with him.

I blame the shock for my instinctive response to that discovery. For the record, my reaction was _not_ the explosive outburst so eagerly portrayed by the media; I did _not_ pour an entire ice bucket on his and his other date's heads. It was half a glass of champagne…cheap champagne…and it was still too good to waste on them. I couldn't really have been less angry at the betrayal of affections that just weren't there for him, but it was a matter of pride.

And it's not a story I'm interested in telling Chakotay just now. Later, probably. Not just now.

I sigh heavily. "Let's just say I think there's a good reason he's been divorced twice. He didn't strike me as the type to do well in captivity." There. That's kind enough. Without being dishonest.

I can't tell, but he may look relieved at that. If so, he does a good job in discarding it faster than I can read and confirm it. "Any new prospects on the horizon?" he asks.

It's a light question. Just as light as mine have been.

"Not really," I answer, pushing food around on my plate.

"Good."

I stiffen briefly. _What_?

_Easy, Kathryn_. _He didn't mean that. Not the way you took it, anyway. Best to keep it light, which is obviously how he meant it. _

"Why good?" I ask, careful not to deepen my inflection or my gaze. Almost careful. Something might've slipped at the way he's staring back at me.

Silence. Hours and hours of silence. Or maybe just a minute of it. Either way, it's starting to feel a trifle more than warm in here. I meet his eyes. Can feel mine shining when I read the same questions, uncertainty in his. _Say it, Chakotay. Tell me why that's good. Please. _

I think it would be so easy to lean forward. To draw the truth out of him with a hand on the right part of his arm. Yet nine years of hard conditioning have trained me otherwise, and because I'm too afraid to be rejected and ruin the friendship that has endured all that time, through kicked up dirt and dust and hellfire, I look back at my plate, feeling a little sick and a little…sad…when he still says nothing.

I worry at the wineglass, toying with its stem. And almost jump at the shock of his hand on mine. It's still electric. Still tingles.

And it's the best he has, I slowly realize. Unless I'm waiting on another legend. He's got to be running out of those by now.

It's now or never. This or nothing.

Why should it be easy to get together when staying apart had always been _so_ hard?

I squeeze his hand. Look up. Take a leap of faith that is far from easy. "You know, there's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"What's that?" His voice sounds as dry as mine. He looks as terrified as I am. It's bolstering somehow.

"We've been home for over a year and a half, and never once in all that time have you offered to take me to Venice."

All right, it's not even a question. But it's the best I can do, and he can't miss that. What it means. Now it's in his hands. He can choose to answer the question directly, or he can choose to break my stones about asking questions that aren't questions, and we'll laugh it off and things will stay exactly the same as they are.

He isn't looking at me. He's looking at our hands. I can't bring myself to take that as a good sign, have to drop my gaze as well.

Until he says, "I didn't think you wanted me to, Kathryn."

My heart soars. Because the rest of it, all of it…is easy now.

* * *

><p>~~C~~<p>

* * *

><p>"When you get back, assuming nothing has changed for either of us, we'll meet in Venice."<p>

It makes perfect sense. It's very cool and adult and logical. Almost Tuvok-ian, and I'd smile if this were another time, another place. Instead, I stand, hold out a hand for her to do the same. I let myself drown in her eyes.

I can't believe it was that easy – I almost laugh. Okay, it wasn't. It was hard, terrifying. We came very close to not telling each other exactly how we feel. Again. In fact, as usual, I'm not so sure I _did_ tell her. Not in the kind of clear-cut words that would make this a done deal if she's still couching our future in terms of bargains and what ifs.

Ten months, we would be waiting. Ten months on top of nine and a half years we had no choice but to waste. Well…seven. The rest was my absolute and utter stupidity.

I stare at her. Really stare. Stare the way I've wanted to for almost a decade, and my eyes fall on that tight upsweep of red hair that looks so regal on her, that always did. It is, as it always was, a symbol of everything she keeps locked up inside of her, of how she guards her heart. Of how she's still doing it, to some degree. Guarding it. _Not from me, Kathryn. Not ever from me. _

_Not anymore. _

I used to imagine the ease with which I could reach over and remove those pins from her hair. To undo the last constraints that stand between us, both figuratively and literally, and to watch her come unraveled for me. She would let me. Right now, she would let me do it.

In fact, as I discover, when I do reach out and undo those pins…the movements are just as simple, as natural as I'd always thought they would be.

And so is saying this. "I let you go once, Kathryn." Once, twice – a hundred times too many. "Please don't ask me to do it again."

She shakes out her hair for me. Makes no protest, her eyes most definitely locked on my lips. "Come to think of it…"

Once, I imagined how it would be so easy to lean forward and silence her by closing those red lips of hers with mine. In fact, as I discover, when I do lean down and seal her mouth under mine…it _is_ easy.

So easy.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


	9. Epilogue

**Note:** Now this is where I took Beyer's setting and did my own damned thing with the plot and dialogue ;) Hope she forgives me that. No infringement intended.

_Epilogue_

* * *

><p>~~J~~<p>

* * *

><p>I finally see him sitting there, on the tranquil cobblestone streets of Venice, a figure among several but one I would recognize in a crowd of thousands. My pace quickens, my footfalls less and less soft as I approach. I rush the last few steps, breathless, an apology already forming on my tongue for making him wait.<p>

He turns – and I see what's in his hands. The words die on my lips, my progress halted a step away from him. I've only seen it, held it once. It's wrapped in blue ribbon, my favorite color, but I know its shape. Its significance. And I freeze.

"What's the matter?" He's on his feet, his free hand on my arm, his dark eyes crinkling in concern. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm…I'm fine." In my hands, I clutch the box that has been with me since he left, all this time. Slowly, I bring it up, uncurl my fingers and show him what I'm holding. I'd wanted it to be the first thing that he saw. His face lights up as he reaches for it. He takes it from me, wraps his own fingers around it and mutely holds out the mirror he'd brought for me.

After a moment of looking it over, inspecting it closely, I notice that he looks back up to me, pulling my eyes from the most meaningful gift I've ever received, myself – even if it is the second time I'm receiving it.

It will be the last.

He places the wooden box in his pocket like a precious artifact he doesn't want to break, though I can't part with my own artifact just yet. It's too beautiful to put away, where the sunlight will refuse to catch the facets of the multicolored stones and reflect their splendor.

"I'm sorry I'm late," I finally tell him, watching the last traces of worry lines melting away from his familiar face, his smile breaking over the exchange we've waited nearly a decade to complete. "I knew you'd probably be waiting, but last minute debriefings had me–"

He leans forward and closes his lips over mine, silencing me. I'm starting to take that personally. Or would be, if he wasn't stirring things deep within me at the silken slip of his tongue sliding along mine, not-so-teasingly coaxing mine into a response he doesn't need to encourage to receive. If it wasn't such a tactile reminder of the last time that we met and all that lies before us now…

Lunch, when we're able to break apart long enough to politely experience it, is a quick affair. The food is delicious, and the conversation light and jovial. But there's a twinge there behind every word and gesture. Flirtation is no longer just that: meaningless fun. Comments and winking promises are just that. Real promises. Promises we intend to keep.

We're both free. It can be this easy; I'm finally starting to believe it. And when we stand, looking at each other for an eternity of a few seconds, I see everything I need to see standing right in front of me. I see my future.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, it occurs to me that it seems fate doesn't always have to be cruel. She's not _always_ the ruthless bitch I've accused her of being over the years.

It's the easiest thing I've ever done when I take his hand and lead him across the quiet city street to the nearby hotel room that I've booked for us, carefully taking my mirror from the table with my other hand.

We get past the check-in with a belated wave and our notoriety alone, somehow manage to keep our hands _mostly_ off each other until we break into our room, and the doors slide shut behind us.

We're alone. Finally, always alone. For years, when I'd imagined tracing my fingertips over the lines of his tribal markings, I always knew the absolute ease, the familiarity with which my fingers would move. I've done it once before now, but this time is even more real as I lean up and greet him properly, really greet him…fully welcoming him all the way into my heart, for better or for worse. With no lingering reservations. We fall across the newly-made bed and the mirror lies beside us, slipping from my hands to rest on the swiftly-rumpling coverlet. It bears silent witness to the frenzy unleashed between us.

From now on, when in doubt, I _will_ look here. To this moment. To him. To us.

I'm already certain my life will never be the same for it – thank God.

* * *

><p>~~JC~~<p> 


End file.
